


ooh, he's a little runaway

by cheezypoofzzz



Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No IT (King), Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Angst, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Fluff and Angst, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Summaries, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Homophobia, Running Away, Survival, We'll get there, but the others might come in later we'll see, i suck at summaries the actual thing is better i promise, richie's parents AREN'T maggie and wentworth, richie's parents are nothing like in the book, some fit better than others, sorry if that's too weird, the chapter names are all lyrics/titles from 80s songs i'm so sorry, the losers don't know each other except for richie and eddie, the title too actually, they're basically ocs, this IS a runaway fic but they don't run away right at the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26113327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheezypoofzzz/pseuds/cheezypoofzzz
Summary: Eddie has little to no freedom, thanks to his overbearing mother. Maybe she cares, but it's too much and in all the wrong ways, and her constant controlling behavior is suffocating.Richie has all the freedom in the world and has free reign to do whatever he wants whenever he wants, because he's always alone at home. Maybe a little too alone, even.With situations that are so similar yet so different, often Richie and Eddie only have each other to trust and to rely on. Even if they're constantly bickering. And insulting each other. And getting each other into stupid situations.Like this one. Whose idea was it to run away, again?
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	ooh, he's a little runaway

**Author's Note:**

> alright, just as a disclaimer, they don't run away in this chapter, they will do so sometime in the future chapters, relatively soon. i'll get to it as early as possible but it was a lot to try and cram into the first chapter, so i hope that's okay!! another thing, i haven't read the book, even though i plan to. i've only seen the movie, and i know richie has good parents in the book, but in the movie we don't really see them. so richie's parents here aren't maggie and wentworth, just for clarity's sake. i hope that's not too much of a weird jump. regardless, thank you for reading, and i hope you enjoy!

At midnight Richie scours the pantry and the cabinets for food, scanning every shelf for something, _anything_ edible. He frowns when he finds the only unexpired food to be a loaf of bread and a single sad box of stale cereal.

_Looks like another luxurious dinner tonight_ , Richie thinks bitterly.

He takes the cereal and begrudgingly pours himself a bowl. He gives the milk he finds in the fridge a reluctant sniff first to see if it passes up to his food standards, which may be low, but not low enough for him to drink curdled milk, thank you very much. Well. Not without being paid, anyways. He ponders the thought of how Eddie would react to him drinking spoiled milk and snorts.

Thankfully, the milk hasn’t gone bad yet, and so Richie eats off-brand cereal for dinner and skulks back to his room, full of crooked band posters and a smattering of dirty laundry on the horrible shag carpet.

Turning the lights off on his way, he plops down onto his bed, barely remembering to take off his glasses. He lays there for a minute, stomach growling in protest, before finally drifting off.

* * *

After sleeping for what _feels_ like 10 minutes tops, Richie wakes up to the sound of squeaky hinges and the slam of the front door, of slurred cursing and the jangle of keys. 

He squints in the dark, straining to make out the numbers on his clock. It’s slightly blurry due to his lack of glasses, but it’s legible once the hallway light outside his room comes on. It shines underneath his door, and the sudden brightness burns his eyes and he has to blink several times to get used to it before he can look at anything.

Two thirty in the morning.

He rolls over in bed and tries to go back to sleep. He finally manages to only after he can no longer hear the shuffle of footsteps and the light in the hall goes out again.

* * *

The rest of the night Richie sleeps undisturbed, and thanks to the fact that it’s summer and he’s free from the prison they call school, he even gets the chance to sleep in. When he finally crawls out of bed, he goes through his mundane morning routine quickly and finds that he’s alone in the house again when he peeks through the window and sees that his dad’s truck has vanished already.

He’s in the middle of pondering the problem of what to eat for breakfast when he hears the distinct sharp, quick three knocks that could only indicate the presence of one Eddie Kaspbrak.

“Hurry up Richie, I’m gonna get fucking heatstroke out here,” comes Eddie’s muffled voice from the other side of the door.

“Yeah yeah Eds, I know you can’t wait to see me and all, but a little patience would be appreciated,” Richie tsks disapprovingly as he unlocks the front door and lets the other boy in.

“Took you long enough, I was practically baking out there,” Eddie grumbles, wiping his forehead only for his nose to wrinkle in disgust when he sees his arm come away covered in sweat.

Richie shrugs. “Gotta cook spaghetti before you serve it, Eds. Everyone knows that.”

Eddie just scoffs.

“If you want to have spaghetti that’s been soaked in sweat, be my guest.”

Eddie’s regret is immediate when Richie gets that stupid mischievous glint in his eyes he gets when he knows he has a plan to get a reaction out of Eddie and suddenly gets closer.

“You sure about that, Eddie-Spaghetti?”

“Richie, I swear to God if you so much as fucking lick me I will fucking end you,” Eddie hisses and puts a wide berth between himself and Richie by walking backwards, unwilling to take his eyes off of Richie’s stupid glasses-ridden face for fear of the idiot breaking like ten different health codes. Eddie’s, at the very least.

“I always did like my pasta extra salty,” Richie continues in his terrorizing.

“You fucking heathen,” Eddie gives Richie a look of what could only be pure horror.

Richie’s snickering is interrupted by his stomach, growling as if the mere mention of food had called its attention. So he lets Eddie go this time, in favor of hopefully finding something to _actually_ eat.

“I’ll tell you what, if you get me breakfast you can avoid an unpleasant fate of becoming cooked pasta. Spaghetti would make a shitty breakfast food anyways.”

“Breakfast? Richie, it’s like,” Eddie pauses to check his watch, “eleven something. By the time we get anywhere it’ll be lunch. And would it kill you to buy your _own_ food for once?”

“Ouch, you wound me, Eds,” Richie clutches at his heart dramatically.

“I’m not buying you food.”

“You’re killing me,” Richie croaks.

“You’re such a drama queen, you know that?”

“I’m going to die because Ebenezer Scrooge over here wouldn’t buy his best pal Richie- who also happens to be the coolest guy in the world and a total chick-magnet, by the way-- so much as one measly burger.”  
  
“You’re really going to complain about spaghetti as a breakfast food but not burgers? And _what_ chicks? I know you have a vivid imagination and all, but your hand doesn’t count, Richie.”

“I dunno Eds, your mom sure thought I was a chick-magnet last night when we-”  
  
“ _Trashmouth_. I’ll buy you your godforsaken ‘breakfast burger’ if you just shut the hell up,” Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” Richie ceases his previous obscene hand gestures to wrap his arm around Eddie’s shoulders chummily, leaning since Eddie is still shorter than him.

Eddie tenses at first, then relaxes into the touch, since it’s just Richie. He can get over his germaphobia in regards to touching people somewhat around Richie, as long as Richie isn’t trying to be _purposely_ gross. Like he was earlier.

“Asshole,” Eddie elbows him sharply in the ribs.

“Ow! Eds! What was that for?”

* * *

At the burger joint, Richie all but inhales his food, leaving poor Eddie to catch up, only a quarter of the way done. Eddie was always a slow eater- something about chewing properly so that he didn’t choke. It had always seemed silly to Richie, but never actually bothered him.

In fact, if Richie had to wager a guess, if anyone is more bothered by the current situation it’s probably Eddie. Richie having no food left and nothing to do means more time for him to chatter about literally anything and everything that passes through his brain, apparently.

“And so like, I totally kicked his ass and stole his girl. She was all like, _‘Oh Richie, you’re so much hotter than my lame boyfriend who sucks at Street Fighter, have my babies!’_ But I had to turn her down because I didn’t want to make the other girls who were watching jealous, you know? It’s a blessing and a curse. But anyways, you totally should have seen his face when I beat him, dude. Fucking priceless!”

“And let me guess, everyone clapped?” Eddie snarks after downing another bite of his burger.

“And everyone _did_ clap, you’re right. Thank you, Spaghetti.”

Eddie rolls his eyes incredulously.

“If you’re so good at Street Fighter, maybe you should play me sometime,” he offers, picking at sesame seeds on the bun of his burger.

Richie knew it was rare for Eddie to get an opportunity like that- Ms. Kaspbrak hates arcades, where little kids lay their sticky fingers on all the game cabinets and cough and sneeze on each other, and don’t wash their hands, and spread their filthy diseases in the unwitting way only small children could. She would never willingly let Eddie go, and so being the sheltered kid he was, for a long time, Eddie had never gone. Eddie hates sticky, nasty, bacteria-infested things too, but after he enjoyed the first time Richie took him to the arcade and practically coerced Eddie into playing the games, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. Eddie had washed his hands like 30 million times after, but overall? It was worth it.

Richie looks at Eddie as if analyzing him, perhaps even sizing him up. For a video game. Eddie looks up from his burger and looks back at Richie.

“You’ve never played before, Eds. And I’m a master of my art,” Richie warns.

“Bet I could still kick your ass.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll kick it so hard you’ll be tasting my boot when it comes out the other end.”

“Well then, you’re on, Kaspbrak! But don’t come crying to me after I unleash my full can of whoopass on you and I emerge victorious.”

“Whatever you say, Trashmouth,” Eddie tells him, trying and failing to contain a smile.

“Prepare your ass to be grass, then. I’m kinda short on change though,” Richie admits.

He looks thoughtful for a moment, then plunges his hand in between the cushions of the booth they’re sitting at. He roots around for a moment, only looking a little grossed out, and then finally pulls out a bunch of random assorted coins and even a dollar.

Meanwhile, Eddie watches the whole thing, utterly repulsed.

“Jesus Richie, that’s fucking disgusting! You don’t know the last time they cleaned that cushion, it’s probably full of dust particles and decaying food and miscellaneous stains and all kinds of nasty shit, haven’t you heard before that you shouldn’t go reaching into random cushions because this one lady reached into one once and got stabbed by a used syringe and got AIDS, do you have any kind of clue how filthy that is--”

“Relaaaax, Eds. I’m fine, no syringes or razorblades or what-the-fuck-ever you’re worried about. See? My hand’s fine,” Richie reaches toward Eddie to display the aforementioned hand, twisting it this way and that so that Eddie can see that it’s dirty and has dirt and lint and dust and crumbs or _some_ type of unidentified conglomeration of filth on it, but it’s otherwise unharmed on all sides.

“It’s still _gross!_ Go wash your hands before I inhale any of that shit or before you get it on me or my food.”

Richie’s response is to lean across the table and try to wipe his fingers on Eddie’s face, cackling when Eddie yells.

Eddie kicks him in the shin from underneath the table. Hard.

“Ow, fuck! Okay, okay! I’ll wash my hands, are you happy now?”

Richie was getting various injuries at the hands of Eddie today. The little shit may be short and tiny, but he was actually vicious. Like a fucking chihuahua or something. Put your finger too close to his mouth and he’ll bite it clean off, if you provoke him enough.

“Excuse me, did you just call me a fucking _chihuahua_?”

_Oops._

Richie really needs to get a new brain-to-mouth filter.

* * *

Sometime after Richie _finally_ washes his hands, they arrive at the arcade, and they fuck around on Bubble Bobble and Donkey Kong for a while before they actually get to Street Fighter. They go to play Pacman and Richie tells him that _Ms. Pacman_ would be more suitable for Eddie, so Eddie very kindly tells him he should go play Frogger but in real life, to which Richie snorts.

Eventually they get to the game they _really_ came here for, and after two rounds of losing miserably, Eddie realizes he definitely doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“Now do you see how absolutely superior I am? Bask in my amazing skills, Eds. Feel the defeat seep into your pores.”

“Lame,” Eddie groans.

“Aw, come on Eds, now you’re just making me feel bad. You know what? Here, it isn’t really fair unless I teach you.”

“Ughhhh.”

“No one likes a sore loser, Eddie-Spaghetti,” Richie tuts. 

He moves closer to Eddie and his side of the arcade cabinet, and goes to feed the machine yet another quarter. The screen prompts him to select between single or multiplayer, and Richie picks the multiplayer option because well, duh.

“Here, Eds,” he begins, “if you want to get good at Street Fighter, you have to learn the combos.”

“Combos?”

“Combos. Watch and learn,” Richie tells Eddie smugly, “and make sure you pay attention to what buttons I press.”

Eddie watches as Richie presses the buttons in a short but seemingly nonsensical pattern. The character on the screen corresponds to the controls, shouting and releasing a pixelated blue fireball, illuminating the dimly lit arcade and casting pretty blue light onto Richie’s glasses.

“That,” Richie explains, pointing, “is a Hadouken.”

“Cool, so that’s it? Let me try,” Eddie makes a move towards the controls, but Richie catches him by the shoulder, stopping Eddie in his tracks.

“ _Patience,_ young grasshopper,” Richie adopts the voice of a stereotypical movie Japanese kung-fu master and Eddie can instantly tell that he’s practiced this too much, “for you still have much to learn.”

Richie rattles off the list of other moves and demonstrates how to do each one, but Eddie’s not sure he’s really retaining any of it.  
  
Richie shuts up for a moment and after some contemplation, steps aside.

“I think that’s all of them. Why don’t you go ahead and try now?”

“Uh, sure,” Eddie complies, not entirely sure of what to do. So he just stands there, staring dumbly at the buttons on the arcade machine.

“A Hadouken wouldn’t be a bad place to start,” Richie supplies helpfully.

“Uhh. Um.”

Eddie continues staring at the buttons. They hadn’t looked so foreign before, when they were misleadingly simple.

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“Well maybe if you had just shown them to me and let me try them one by _one_ ,” Eddie complains, embarrassed.

“Eds, _Eds._ What am I gonna do with you?” He shakes his head.

“Don’t call me Eds,” Eddie gripes, muttering.

“Here, maybe this’ll make it easier. Muscle memory or something, right?”

Richie moves behind Eddie, taking his hands and placing them over the controls. He lays his hand flat over Eddie’s, making sure that their fingers match and are right over each other on the same buttons. The way they’re standing, Richie’s torso is pressed lightly against Eddie’s back.

“What are you doing?” Eddie stiffens under his touch. All of the places where Richie’s body meets his are suddenly much too warm from the contact, annoyingly so when the air conditioning in the arcade was already much too weak for Eddie’s tastes. 

In fact, his whole body already feels too warm. It’s no secret that Eddie hates summer weather, the opposite of Richie, who could come up with a million different reasons why summer was his favorite, and they’d all be stupid. Every damn year on the first day of summer Richie wastes no time in breaking out those tacky Hawaiian shirts. Eddie would in fact, always tell him how tacky they were every chance he got, but then Richie would tease Eddie about his shorts and his fanny pack and they’d bicker until they both agreed to just shut up and not talk about it for the rest of the summer.

“I’m showing you the controls, so shut up and pay attention,” Richie commands.

“Is this really necess--”

“I said be _quiet,_ ” Richie chides, “Look.”

“ _Down,_ ” Richie shows Eddie slowly, using his own hand to direct Eddie’s to the correct direction.

“Down- _forward_.”

“Forward… And _punch_.”

He shows him once again, but quicker. On the screen Ryu throws yet another flame, but Eddie’s not paying attention. His gaze is still directed down to his hands. _Richie’s_ hands.

“Well, did you get that?”

Eddie looks up to suddenly find Richie leaning over his shoulder to look at him, gaze expectant.

“Uh, yeah,” he tells him, snapping out of some sort of daze to glance away because his face feels hot. “I think so.”

Richie stares at him some more, and Eddie feels strangely awkward. Then Richie seems to have some sort of realization, because he all but jumps out of Eddie’s personal space, and Eddie feels relief wash over him.

“Uh, sorry, I forgot that you probably didn’t want me in your personal space or giving you germs or whatever. You looked uncomfortable, so,” Richie clarified, looking a little flustered himself. Odd.

“No, it’s fine,” Eddie is suddenly very interested in the controllers, refusing to look up from them. “I really do think I remember it now.”

“Really?” Richie perks up a bit.

“Yeah. I think, anyways. Uh… Down… Down-forward? And… Forward, and punch. Right?”

“You did remember! Aw, Eds, I’m so proud,” Richie coos sarcastically, but he really does look proud. “You have done well, young padawan.”

“I guess your teaching isn’t _that_ shitty,” Eddie admits.

“Come on, you can give me more credit than that, Eds. Before this you’d never touched a Street Fighter game in your life and here you are already doing the Hadouken. All thanks to yours truly.”

“Don’t push it, dude.”

“Well it doesn’t matter what you think, because your next task is to learn Shoryuken!”

Eddie groans.

* * *

As much as he hates to admit it, Richie’s lessons have been helping him improve at Street Fighter.

Soon enough, Eddie starts to get the hang of the game and all of the combos, and he’s actually managing to at least give Richie a hard time. He’ll get revenge. Soon.

Nonetheless, it isn’t long before they’re nearly out of quarters, so they play a couple more rounds and resolve to leave and come back some other time.

They scrummage up their remaining money to split a greasy pizza that Eddie’s mother would never let him have and argue about what toppings to get for five minutes until they find out they can get different toppings on each respective half of their pizza. Then they compromise and do so, but not without making passive aggressive remarks about the others’ taste in pizza toppings.

“No way, dude. I can’t believe you’ve never had Bagel Bites before,” Richie tells Eddie, mouth half full with pizza.

Eddie gives him The Look, the one that tells Richie that he knows very well the reason why.

“Okay fine, I can believe it, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering _how_ you’ve lived your life not knowing how amazing they are.”

“Can’t miss what you’ve never had,” Eddie says plainly, expressionless.

Richie frowns.

“Next time we’re fucking around at the store, we’re gonna buy some, and you’re gonna eat them, and you’re gonna like them. Fuck anyone who says otherwise, dude. You can eat whatever you want at my house.”  
  
Which is to say, not much, but Richie usually at least tried to have food when Eddie was over.

“It’s fine, Richie. Like I said, I don’t even know what I’m missing, so I don’t really care.”

“But Eds, an existence without Bagel Bites has to be fucking _miserable_. I’m doing this to improve your overall quality of life, and you don’t have a choice.”

“That’s great and all and I appreciate the sentiment,” Eddie’s words coax a grin out of Richie, “but where exactly do you plan to get the money?”

Richie’s grin falters for a second but he doesn’t let himself drop it completely.

“I have my ways,” he waggles his eyebrows at Eddie mysteriously.

“Should I ask?”

“Nah,” Richie tells him.

Eddie raises an eyebrow at him quizzically.

“Don’t worry about it.”

* * *

That night, Richie checks the pantry and cupboard again to find exactly the same amount of food as before, which is to say none. Well, less, actually, since there’s less cereal now, but whatever. Same difference.

With a sigh, Richie decides that he can’t put it off any longer and sits down on the living room sofa next to the coffee table the ancient rotary phone lies on.

He dials and brings the phone up to his ear, listening to it ring.

On the sixth ring he finally gets an answer.

“What is it, kid?”

“Hello to you too, Dad,” Richie mutters.

“I don’t have time for this, Richie. I’m at work,” comes the gruff voice from the other end. Richie hears boisterous laughter and the clinking of glasses from the other side and absently wonders what kind of workplace plays ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ loud enough to wake up the whole town.

“I know, but I was just wondering. Are you picking up groceries anytime soon? All we have is bread and cereal.”

“We have ham and cheese in the fridge. Make yourself a sandwich or something if you’re hungry.”

There’s silence.

“I checked the fridge, Dad. It’s spoiled,” Richie fights to keep the frustration out of his voice, ending up sounding too level.

The ham and cheese has _been_ spoiled and thrown away ever since the electricity had gone out and then flickered back on a day or two later about a week ago. It wasn’t from a power outage, to say the least, but Richie avoids bringing it up, knowing it’s a sore subject.

“I’ll get groceries tomorrow,” his dad dismisses.

“Are you su-”

Richie hears a woman’s voice calling his dad’s name on the other side of the line before it goes dead.

Richie sits there for a minute after the phone’s gone quiet, fighting off the urge to scream.

He ends up putting the phone back perhaps too forcefully, and gets up.

Richie makes his way down the hallway, but passes his room. His target is at the end of the hall.

The door is locked, but the mechanism is shitty, so a paperclip retrieved from old school papers is all it takes to get through.

It comes open with a dull click, and Richie creeps through, careful not to disturb anything.

In the corner of the room he finds it laying on the nightstand next to his father’s ashtray- a mason jar full of change.

He picks it up, holding onto it tightly, as if his life depends on it. Despite the weight of all the heavy coins inside, he’s never dropped it yet, and he doesn’t plan to.

Gently, he unscrews the lid. Lefty-loosey. He takes some money out. Righty-tighty. The lid’s back where it belongs.

Holding up the jar in front of his face, he gauges whether there’s a noticeable difference or not. It’s only a slight difference. It’ll be okay.

Shaky hands put the heavy glass container back in its spot, and Richie is out of the room as quickly as he got in. He locks the door back with the same paperclip he used to unlock it, and goes back to his room. Safe.

The tension releases from his shoulders like a weight’s been lifted, and he lets his back slide down the door until he finds himself sitting on his carpet, knees pulled up against his chest. No one’s there to see otherwise, but when the frustration comes welling up, becoming tangible, salty and running down his cheeks and down his chin, he hides his face anyway.

* * *

“Shit Richie, these Bagel Bites _are_ pretty good.”


End file.
